Look Closer
by Altaica
Summary: I'm back! Okay, this is a pointless little songfic-like thing about Electra.....it came out of nowhere, and is basically a game of emotions. R/r, please!


Look Closer ****

Look Closer

(A/N: just something I thought up…..it's basically a LONG game of emotions with a bit of action near the end. Please r/r! This is also the first time I've tried using HTML documents, so bear with me…)

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Look at me  
You may think you see  
who I really am  
But you'll never know me

She sat there, silent and resigned, watching helplessly as her friends sang and danced. They were all so happy, so ignorant to the fact that SHE was here, too. Even her name was plain. It was said that everything was in a name, and it was true—happy-go-lucky Etcetera, sexy, flirty Bombalurina, pretty, delicate Victoria.

So where did she fit into all of this? Electra. What kind of a name was that? You might expect the owner of that name to be firey and golden—electric. But no, she was just herself, plain, muddled orange and brown. Everyone thought of her as just another of the kittens, Tugger-worshipping, carefree, silly. But she wasn't! She wasn't.

She didn't sing well, like Jemima, or dance like Victoria, or even make the other cats laugh, like Etcy could. She couldn't capture Tugger's attention for more than a few seconds, as he glanced her way in the process of surveying his loyal mob of adoring Queens. Besides, she wasn't even into Tugger anymore. 

She watched **him **whirl past. He was an excellent dancer, better, even, than Tugger. But birds of a feather flock together, and Victoria was in his arms, smiling radiantly. She heard Jennyanydots whisper in Skimbleshanks's ear a couple of seats over: 'Don't they make a striking couple?'.

Tears stung Electra's eyes. Yes, they make a striking couple. When you're handsome like he is, and beautiful as Victoria, it's difficult not to! Every cat noted the couples' presence, light and dark, night and day—beauty and beauty.

And she, Electra, would never be a part of a striking couple. Because, well… she wasn't striking to begin with. And that would never change. She'd seen herself in the broken mirrors littered around the Junkyard…. Mirrors don't lie.

They think they understand me, Electra thought, scoffing inwardly. Understand me? It's not all that simple.

Every day, is as if I play a part  
Now I see  
If I wear a mask  
I can fool the world  
But I cannot fool my heart

She wasn't really a kitten anymore, being the same age as Victoria, but she wasn't really an adult, either. And she wasn't mature and regal enough to act as a real Queen would, which Vicki did with ease. _Maybe I should be an actress,_ she thought to herself. _After all, I've had practice._

Every day, she had to pretend that she didn't loathe the beautiful white Queen for stealing away all that she had ever loved. Tugger had been a childish phase, just as playing hide-and-seek had been. This was real, she knew it.… and he didn't know that she existed. 

She allowed the tears to roll freely down her face then, knowing that in the dark, nobody would notice. Nobody would care. It's not like they cared anyway, on normal days…. But poor, plain Electra, crying in the corner at the Jellicle Ball! Easy enough to ignore. If she doesn't want to join in the fun, it's her problem. Jump back into the dance and forget about her.

It's probably just some problem with Bombalurina flirting with Tugger, they said to themselves. She's just a kitten. She couldn't be really sad…. Could she? She acted happy enough, most of the time, although she always had been a little reclusive. Oh well. Maybe she was just shy.

That's it, she said to herself, looking at the ground. _I'm just shy. Just shy, just ugly, just Electra._I don't matter.

Who is that girl I see  
Staring straight back at me?  
When will my reflection show  
Who I am inside? 

She hated herself. She hated herself more than anything in the world. More than Victoria, for taking all that she had loved. More than Etcetera, supposedly her best friend—so clueless, and not in the normal Cettie way. Cettie had always noticed when something was wrong when they were young, had always listened to her rant, even if she didn't understand it all. 

But lately, Etcetera had grown up…and left Electra behind. Electra knew that Cettie had her eye on Tumblebrutus, and smiled a little as they whirled by. They looked so happy and free—and they, too, made a striking couple. Etcetera's almost-white fur gleamed in the moonlight, and Tumble was big and strong. They just fit together, in a way that Electra was sure she would never fit with anyone.

Too bad they don't have convents for cats, she mused. Since she'd never have a mate, well….. in the olden days, convents were where women went who weren't wanted, who couldn't find a marriage. Electra hunkered down and put her head on her paws, watching the others dance. 

She had ideas, something that nobody would believe of her. Except for Etcetera, nobody really knew that Electra had a mind, and that it worked. But beauty and talent came before brains…..and Electra had neither of the first two. She was too ashamed of herself, of her looks, to tell anyone except Cettie her ideas….and now Cettie had better things to do than sit around and listen to her kittenhood friend rant and complain and muse. It started with a T.

I am now in a world where 

I have to hide my heart  
And what I believe in  
But somehow I will show the world  
What's inside my heart  
And be loved for who I am

Across the Junkyard, Mistoffelees looked at where Electra lay. She was beneath a broken-down crate, planks missing from the box's structure, causing silver-white moonlight to fall between the beams. A mosaic of light and dark, night and day…. Electra and the world.

He had noticed her often when she was younger and even more often in recent years. She always seemed to think a little more deeply than everyone else, see something that slipped past the rest. And she always had a cloak of sadness about her, of misery and despair.

Victoria stepped alongside him, beauty incarnate, but she didn't hold his attention. Vicki could be as shallow as a puddle. Electra was deep as the seven seas, and then some. He knew that the Tribe expected him to find love with Victoria, with the perfect white princess, to become Mates. The two "perfects" of the tribe. But Victoria had an ego bigger than Rum Tum Tugger's and saw him as only so much meat.

He had seen Electra watching him when she thought that he couldn't see her. He had seen the longing in her eyes. He had had to use every trick he knew to keep the tears from falling, tears induced by the hard, sharp cut of her eyes. Electra had the most amazing eyes. Victoria's, for all her outward beauty, were flat, dull green. But Electra's….

Her eyes were golden and burned with some unknown fire, some innermost being longing to be let out. Emotions swam in those eyes, endlessly moving, roving, trying to find places to stay and settle. And it made his heart wrench when he saw those eyes fill with tears, swim with shame….

He knew how she felt. More than anything, he knew how she felt. Victoria didn't understand him, had never tried. To the Tribe, he was something of a clown, a magical clown set there to spin illusions and sparkly ribbons and easy entertainment. But to Electra…..well, he didn't quite know what he was to her. He didn't know who anyone was to her. She was as hard to read as a book in a foreign language, Chinese or French or Hebrew. 

But he was relatively certain that she saw him for him, and not for what everyone else saw. Those eyes pierced everyone's armor, saw the secret beneath. She could tell how shallow Victoria was, how cocky and yet uncertain Rum Tum Tugger was….how lonely he was. 

Who is that girl I see  
Staring straight back at me?  
Why is my reflection  
Someone I don't know?  
Must I pretend that I'm  
Someone else for all time?  
When will my reflection show  
Who I am inside?

Electra didn't see Mistoffelees look at her. She was remembering, remembering Grizabella. Griz had been beautiful in her youth, everyone could remember it. But if she left the Tribe, if she came back like Grizabella had….nobody would remember her as a beauty. They would remember the ugly, uncertain, quiet, reclusive kitten. Not an adult. Not in their eyes. Not until she was beautiful…..

Which meant never.

She no longer knew herself. Maybe she never had. She used to be able to lock herself away in her mind for hours, days, weeks at a time, while her body traveled on autopilot. She could travel beyond the Junkyard, where she was a beautiful damsel, where Mistoffelees was her knight in shining armor. Fairy tales spun in her head and remembered even now…..but she could no longer do that. Not when the here and now bothered her so much, without worrying about the fantasy land that she had woven as an escape.

She hated pretending. She hated it with everything in her, everything outside of her, everything around her. She hated pretending more than she hated herself for being such a misfit. It was one thing to be a certain kind of misfit, like Tantomile was: the beautiful, useful misfit. She was one of the psychics of the Tribe, hauntingly, mysteriously beautiful. 

And no matter how many times a Tom will say that personality matters….beauty matters more. No Tom wants the trouble of actually having to look and understand a Queen…..

Look closer, and you might see me.

Why must we all conceal  
What we think  
How we feel  
Must there be a secret me  
I'm forced to hide? 

Mistoffelees decided that he couldn't take much more of the white Queen hanging around him like the fur on a Pollicle. He broke away from her, making some excuse about going to talk to Tugger, just to get away. Victoria knew so little about him, although she was with him practically every waking moment. She didn't know that he'd sooner shave his own fur off than actually hold a conversation with Tugger.

Strange, isn't it, how with both Victoria and Tugger the conversation always turned to themselves? Even Bombalurina wasn't that bad. He hopped onto one of the crates near where Electra lay, looking inside out of the corner of his eye. She was watching the dancers, the couples swinging by in rapid grace: Mungojerrie and Rumpleteazer, Etcetera and Tumblebrutus, Bombalurina and Rum Tum Tugger, Jemima and Pouncival, Demeter and Munkustrap. 

He struggled to find his voice, to say something, anything. But Electra just buried her head in her paws, squeezing the magnificent eyes shut, her body shaking with silent cries. He longed to reach out, to hold her….but his body refused to obey his mind's commands. And so he sat, helplessly watching, even as Victoria across the Junkyard glared like the sun off of snow.

I won't pretend that I'm  
Someone else

For all time  
When will my reflection show  
Who I am inside?

Look at them, so happy, so free. Paired up, in love……that will never, ever be me. Never. Never was a long time. 

Never had been a long time coming for Electra, who would never quite measure up to standards. Never be good enough for him…

"Electra?"

She jumped. Without looking, she knew it was him….but why would he be here? Why wouldn't he be with Victoria? After all, she thought, raising her eyes to meet his, Vicki has so much more to offer.

Their eyes met. It is said that eyes are the windows to the soul, and it was true in both cases. And they recognized each other's loneliness….and Electra smiled. It had been so long since she had smiled, being caught up in dark shadows of loneliness, in the spider-web of despair and heartbreak. She knew then that her eyes showed who she was, truly……and he could see it.

"Would you like to dance?"

When will my reflection show  
Who I am inside?

(A/N: okay, so the story went on a separate track form the song at the end, buuut….what do y'all think? it's been WAY too long since I've written fanfiction, soooo….)


End file.
